Point of No Return: Report condemns detention of unreturnable migrants

A new report by Detention Action and four partner organisations has found that migrants are detained across Europe when they cannot be deported.

States are required only to detain as a last resort. Yet the research finds that migrants are detained unnecessarily when return to the country of origin is impossible.

Twenty migrants in Belgium, France, Hungary and the UK tell powerful stories of indefinite limbo, homelessness and precarity. All have been held in immigration detention for a deportation that can never become possible.

However, only in the UK are migrants detained indefinitely. Unreturnable migrants cannot be deported, so find themselves stuck in detention.

The research was conducted in partnership by Detention Action, Flemish Refugee Action, France terre d’asile, Menedek and the European Council for Refugees and Exiles.